Long before Mitt Romney was a hero to the left
for voting to impeach Donald Trump he was for years Hollywood's greatest source
of mockery. One particular comment he made during his run for the Presidency in
2012 was something Hollywood never stopped playing. His straight-faced delivery
that 'Corporations are People'.
To be clear I laughed as much as anyone because
it is a ridiculous statement for any politician to make. However having spent
much of the subsequent decade watching late night in the age of Trump, I've
come to realize that in the modernist theory of the left, it actually has some
cache. Or at least you'd think as much if you watched John Oliver during this
period.
How many episodes has he argued about
corporations such as Amazon, Boeing or McKinney as if these were human beings destroying
the world rather than corporate entities? And its not just corporations he
personifies: it's government institutions, organized religion, education, political
parties, other countries, even Law & Order. I can count on one hand
how many times in the decade I watched him when he ever chose to set his rage
on a single person who he thought was destroying the country or the world.
And all of these rants which are usually
disguised with jokes make the judgment that these are people in a way keeping
with Oliver's now blatantly leftist politics: they are broken because they
don't act with the proper morality structure which is the only thing that
should factor it, rather than such things as economics or political gain which Oliver
thinks should not factor into why they – or really anybody – should choose to
do something. Like the overwhelming majority of leftist thinkers Oliver
believes the only reason anybody should do anything – and he makes it clear
that he considers corporations no different then people that regard – is for
the common good, even if it doesn't benefit that institution personally, if
there's no short-term or long term benefit, or even if it ends up destroying your
ability to do good entirely. That's more
or less what has passed for a governing philosophy among leftist thinkers for
nearly two centuries. That it is almost certainly can't work in practice has
not stopped them for advocating for it.
I need to be clear I think that the lion's share
of conservative philosophy – some of which men like Oliver have expressed on
his show – is absurd. I think the ideas behind Ayn Rand's objectivism, Antonin
Scalia's originalism and the grand unitary theory of the executive are appalling
distortion of theory and I think it insane so many otherwise intelligent people
have gone along with them. But that doesn't mean that I don't think that leftist
political theory – or as is almost always the case, a mix of moral superiority combined with
deconstructionism disguised as intellectual thought – is any better or
that it deserves to be embraced as gospel while the other side must be
excoriated completely. I think if you are wrong, you should be called as such
no matter what political side you're on. The left – and for the purposes of
this essay the Hollywood liberal – has never seen it this way and like the
right they've doubled down on their position in the past decade.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: what's
the real difference between the kind of behavior of late night entertainers in
the last decade and the talking heads on Fox News, aside from their politics? Both
groups are made up of overwhelmingly rich, white males (and it says something
that conservative news has more women in key positions than late night that is
rarely brought up) Both groups are made up of educated people who talk to an
audience for an hour every night with no real dissenting voices present. Both
groups make the argument that America is hurtling towards destruction and it is
a certain group of people who are bringing it there. The only difference I can
see – apart from the fact that they aim for a different kind of political
audience – is that the ones on Fox News and conservative outlets have a share
of the market that keeps getting bigger with each year while those in late
night have been shrinking during that same period. For the ones in the latter group who claim to
be the smartest people in the room, this should tell them something about where
they stand in relation to the rest of the country. The fact that while they've been expounding on
this point of view during the last decade and it has done nothing to
negate Trump's appeal – has apparently only increased it by the only metric
that matters, the voting public – should tell them something else.
But like the Republican officials they constantly
mock, Hollywood liberals have remained in complete denial of where they stand
in the hierarchy of American importance. Nothing could better demonstrate this,
in my opinion, then the imbroglio involving Kimmel that has unfolded over the
past week.
The best thing Hollywood managed to do was one of
the few things is the loudest voices in the room can do, and that's set the
terms of the debate. What Jimmy Kimmel said on Monday and Tuesday and what
followed behind the closed doors of ABC was completely shoved aside by the time
Kimmel was suspended 'indefinitely' Wednesday night. This was a free speech
issue and how Trump was trying to silence dissent. This is a joke, in my
opinion, far more absurd then I've heard on late night in a while because as
anyone can tell you, the left has been trying to cancel people it disagrees
with for years and have for all intents and purposes failed. There are
countless examples of this I can give over the past year alone but I'll go with
the most relevant.
After Stephen Colbert was canceled earlier this
summer, Jay Leno was interviewed to talk about it. In his measured and mostly objective
remarks he said that he found so much of comedy today was being an activist and
that 'most comedians were going out of their way to isolate half the country
with their material'. He didn't name
names; he didn't have to.
The facts more than bared out Leno's interpretation;
late night numbers had been dropping for the past seven years and multiple
shows had to economize to stay on the air. It had essentially started since
2017 when late night essentially became an unofficial part of the attacks
against Trump and it hadn't ended after he left the first office time. Everyone
in late night had to know this.
And yet every single person in late night, including
Kimmel, chose to paint Leno the man who had been the biggest draw in the medium
for nearly two decades and without whom many of them likely wouldn't have
careers, as being completely ignorant about what it took to be a successful
entertainer or a comedian. They also all
called him by name – in some truly horrendous terms - which he pointedly hadn't. This fits the
pattern of extremists on either side: circle the wagons, vilify the accuser and
deny reality. That those very same people chose to rally around Kimmel – when his
monologues on the previous nights were textbook examples of everything Leno had
said was isolating the audience – was symbolic of that same doublethink that progressives
will always accuse the right of being guilty but never point out when one of
their own does it.
During the next few days everyone in Hollywood,
particularly in Late Night chose to praise Kimmel and attack Disney for 'bending
the knee'. All the other factors in the
decision – including the corporate ones which I'll eventually get into – were pushed
aside and it was a simple question of morality. Everyone in Hollywood, along with MSNBC, and
certain progressive organizations, reduced a very complicated situation involving
many economic and political factors to a binary yes or no question solely
based on morality. You're either with us or against us. That this attitude is
almost word for word the kinds of things the President regularly says in his
rallies – many of which late night programs have quoted extensively over the years – was
either not talked about or ignored by Hollywood and the people among it.
When ABC decided to let Kimmel resume
broadcasting yesterday, it was cheered as a victory for free speech. The truth,
I suspect, was more complicated and I suspect economic more than anything. I
suspect cost-benefit analysis was done and here's what I think the argument is:
Disney, unlike most progressives, was thinking of
the big picture. That meant a world post-Trump which again, is going to
happen. They've already been a
target for a huge amount of conservative backlash over the past decade which
has been hurting their revenues in many projects. They could and might win them back but that
was going to be a long term project. What would hurt them far more in the short
term was if the overwhelmingly left-wing
talent of Hollywood – which had made it clear was on the side of Kimmel – chose
to desert them and more importantly if the liberal audience did as well. Furthermore
Kimmel's contract is up next year and there were indications before this he
might retire from late night. I suspect they were counting that the usually
short memory of the left and the glass bubble of which Hollywood perpetually
lives in would move on if they threw them this bone.
Also factoring into this was the fact that even
some Republicans were alarmed at how the FCC
was used. Ted Cruz actually said on his podcast that while he wasn't
going to mourn Kimmel's departure, he didn't like the precedent being set.
"Don't think the Democrats won't do this when they take power again,"
he said. Other prominent Republicans such as Rand Paul and Tulsi Gabbard
concurred with the sentiment, though neither used as direct language.
So Kimmel is on the air tonight and it is being cheered
by Hollywood as a 'victory'. As a Democrat
who never watched Kimmel and had little interest in his fate, I'm troubled by the
fact that this is the case. That said, I am grateful to this because it has
resolved something.
For years I've spent so much time trying to
figure out what a win looks like for progressives and leftists, a question that they've never once answered.
Now I do. It's when a white, Hollywood millionaire gets to keep his job calling
Trump the worst names possible in front of a studio audience.
Because I fail to see what has realistically been
gained. To paraphrase Chris Rock: "Where's my Jimmy Kimmel prize?"
Trump is still the President, for the next year at least still has a Congress led
by Republicans still willing to do his bidding, a Supreme Court that basically shows
no constraints on his power, a cabinet of sycophants and a hold on a decent
part of the electorate that doesn't seem to be fading much. His administration will
still have the power to hurt Americans and create global policy for the next
three years.
I'd actually argue that everything involving Kimmel
has helped both him and the conservative cause for at least a little
longer. Even those who might not have
liked what Trump was doing are still unified in their contempt for Hollywood
and everything the left represents. I
guarantee you the moment ABC chose to back Kimmel fundraising emails were sent
out from every association with Republicans and conservative cause.
Furthermore all of this has confirmed in
the eyes of millions who think that the business of Hollywood is completely in
thrall to the left. They now have written proof of the fact. For nearly a
quarter of a century networks like Fox News and their subsidiaries have made
meals out of Hollywood's 'radical agenda' and the left's 'attacks on free
speech'. Imagine how delighted Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfield were when this
happened. Now they don't have to try to distort the footage to make their
message clear: Hollywood's essentially told them as much.
And as a Democrat who knows that the party
weakness is with rural America and working class voters (something that the
John Oliver's of the world deny should apply) I can't see how the liberal
embrace of Kimmel is going to do anything but hurt the cause for a while. Perhaps
if enough time goes by and the effects of the administration become more
widespread this will pass. But realistically I fail to see how so many prominent
Democrats making this cause will help us in the elections that follow.
"But" I hear the left arguing, "it
worked. Kimmel's back on the air." Here's the thing. After Kimmel made his
remarks on Tuesday 62 affiliates associated with Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcasting
told ABC they were not going to air Kimmel in their markets if he wasn't taken off
the air. They didn't change their minds when Kimmel came back. For all those
viewers who tuned into Kimmel on a nightly basis and may have needed him for a release
from the horrors of daily life, they all saw him for the last time on Tuesday
and will never see him again.
Most of them, I should add, are in markets that
were either in deep red states or ine sections of blue ones that are fairly
conservative. Despite how the left chooses to see the country, minorities,
women, LGBTQ+ and Democrats lived in those sections of the country as much as Republicans
did. They no doubt needed Kimmel more
than those of us who lived in Hollywood or New York did. Now he's essentially
gone forever from their lives. I realize that most of Hollywood holds this
entire part of the country in contempt – John Oliver has made it clear multiple
times he doesn't think they count - but
they didn't have a voice in the decision and they didn't gain anything from it
either. This sure as hell wasn't a victory for them, and I seriously doubt that
MoveOn is going to send out a petition demanding Kimmel be restored in these
sections of the country.
So what was everything with Kimmel about really?
Honestly a white, wealthy Hollywood liberal said some nasty things about the
President and he got a week off while everybody else fought for him. A bunch of
fellow multi-millionaires took time off from their schedule to tell one of the
biggest corporations in the world to act like a human being and do the right thing.
The corporation looked at its ledger, weighed the consequences and chose to
deal with one potential market and its talent pool against a smaller one. One group of loud extremists called this
triumph for liberty; another group calls this a sign of Hollywood corruption.
And the rest of America, including the overwhelming majority of Americans who haven't
watched Kimmel and have to care about more important things, by and large
ignored most of it and will quickly forget it in the days to come.
For the foreseeable future the status quo will
remain. Hollywood will continue to relentlessly pillory Trump, despite the fact
that no one asked them to take the job in the first place and that it hasn't
changed anything. The President will tweet about it once or twice and then move
on to the business of running the country. Much of that will hurt the everyday
American, many of whom can no longer watch Kimmel as a distraction from their
lives anymore. And as always it will be left to those of us who want to fix
things for all Americans – including those who thought Kimmel should have been kicked
to the curb – to try and make the country a better place going forward.
We certainly won't be getting any help from
Hollywood in that matter, and this should make it clear if nothing else did
that they're no more interested in helping the overwhelming majority of Americans
then MAGA is. As a critic I would be fine if you just did what these evil
corporations pay you to do and make films and TV shows that are entertaining and
keep your opinions to yourself. For all your posturing about everyone doing the
right thing, this has made it clear you can be as self-centered and egotistical
as anyone on the far right. If this whole thing has been your collective idea
of helping the cause, then speaking for myself: Stop helping.
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